Colin Harrison - Afterburn

"The Narcan is working," a calm voice announced. "Maybe ten seconds more."

He opened his eyes to look at the arm, to see how the chain snaked around it, even cut through it, probably cut through it, and when he did, he saw three men watching him, men he remembered but did not know. The floor was littered with fast-food bags, and they'd brought in a television.

"Oh, please!" he cried, his mouth hurting thickly. "Make it go away!"

"Can't do that, Rick," answered the one named Morris. "Your heartbeat was getting a little sleepy on me there. I had to snap you back."

He was laid out on a table in a bloody T-shirt. He lurched up. His right arm was still cuffed to the table. His left arm barely extended past his sleeve. A metal clamp was taped into the bandage. "You fuckers cut off my arm!"

Morris laid a heavy hand on Rick's chest. "Easy," he said, pushing Rick down gently, familiar with bodies in distress.

"My arm! You fuckers cut off my arm!"

"I did a very beautiful job packing that arm. Textbook."

I'm weak, Rick thought.

"You going to ask him about the money again?" said the one named Tommy.

"He doesn't know anything," said Morris, resting his palm on Rick's forehead.

"How can you tell?"

"How?" He frowned. "I've treated something like two thousand people in shock. You can't lie when you're in shock." Morris took Rick's pulse, checked his watch. "The body doesn't work that way. The body forgets things in shock, but it doesn't lie."

"What time is it?" Rick asked.

"Late. Early. Two a.m."

"Is my arm here?" he called upward.

"You arm's in the cooler," said Tommy. "We got it on ice. Like beer."

"Can I have it?" he asked in a faraway voice.

Morris shook his head. "Not yet."

"When?"

"When we're done here."

He felt unable to lift his head. Hot but cold. "When is that?" He closed his eyes. He understood the pain as a kind of exposed wetness; if he could get the arm stuck back on, then maybe it would stop. His foot and rib and mouth hurt like there were holes in them, nails and glass and bone slivers. "What the fuck do you fucking want?" Rick cried at the ceiling.

"What does anybody want?" said Morris. "We want the cash."

He felt his breathing now. Some problem with his rib. The pain in the arm was wired into the breathing. He twisted to look.

"The more you move, Rick, the more the skin will differentiate at the edges of the wound." Morris pulled a candy bar from his pocket. "Here." He tore away the wrapper, broke off a piece, and pushed it between Rick's lips. "Get some sugar going."

"Where's my arm?"

Morris pointed and Rick lifted his head, just enough. A red plastic cooler, big enough for about a hundred pounds of tuna steaks. Sealed with duct tape, even. He collapsed back onto the table.

"Tell me about the money, Rick," said Morris.

"When we get to the hospital."

Morris handed Rick the candy bar. "We can't take you into the hospital."

"Drop me at the corner."

The men looked back and forth. "He doesn't know about the boxes," Tommy said. "Not after that."

"Probably got some stash somewhere, though."

"How much you got, Rick?"

"Oh, fuck," he breathed. "Maybe forty thousand."

"Not enough, man."

He'd known a hundred guys like them. "It's all I got." He ate the rest of the candy bar. It was helping. Maybe he could talk okay, despite the pain of the tooth. Morris wanted to get this thing wrapped up. "Take me and my arm to the hospital-to the corner, whatever. You each get something like… thirteen, fourteen thousand bucks. I don't have any more money. I had all my cash in my aunt's place."

"Yeah, we know. Where is it now?"

He found the texture of the ceiling interesting.

"What's wrong with him?"

"The sugar is hitting him pretty hard, I think."

"Where's the truck, Rick?"

"My truck. In a garage."

"Look in his wallet for the ticket."

They pulled it out of his pocket.

"Nothing."

"Give the man his wallet back, we don't need picky-shit cash."

"How did you find me?"

Morris ignored the question. "Where's the garage, Rick?"

He felt strange. "You know," he explained, "I saw my mother inside a tomato."

They may not have been honorable men, but they were reasonable, especially when the reason was easy money and the prisoner was babbling, and so they threw an old coat over him, hiding his bandaged stump, and half-dragged him outside into the old taxi, the lettering and medallion number painted over poorly, the interior torn to hell, and sat him in the back, which made his stump and ribs hurt, and they each grabbed a handle and dropped the cooler into the trunk just like they said they would, and put the toolboxes in the front. He glanced down the block and under a streetlight saw a skinny dog looking back, something hanging from its mouth. Morris handed Rick a big bottle of Gatorade and said, Drink the whole thing. Drink it now, keep your fluids up. He did it and maybe felt better. One guy sat on each side of him, and after the long night neither had a beautiful smell. Morris sat at the wheel and pushed them crosstown on Fourteenth Street, a few people outside walking along peacefully. Hey, they cut off my arm! He would never say that because then they might not take him to the hospital, and besides, he was feeling a little weak, to be honest about it, his foot and ankle hurt as much as his arm, he couldn't really breathe the way he wanted, he was still thirsty and his head hurt. He wanted to sleep. Just get there, just, just.

"You all right, Rick?"

"He's in shock," Morris said, checking his mirror. "His pupils are big. He went from lying down to a sitting position. His heart is working a little harder, and probably there was too much sugar in that candy bar. His kidneys are dry, but he'll be okay. Five minutes he'll be better."

"But you remember about the truck, right, Rick?"

"Yes."

"Not going to forget that."

He shook his head, which made his face hurt. "No."

A few minutes later they were close to Bellevue and pulled over at the light.

"Rick, the hospital is up the block." Morris watched in the rearview mirror. "You go just up the block and there it is."

"Get me out first."

"First talk about the money."

"Outside. Get me out."

They opened a door. Gentlemen. Of course, they could shove him back into the car if they wanted. He dragged himself over the seat and put his feet on the pavement. He could barely move, his ankle and foot and arm hurt so much.

"We've been very cool here, Rick. Now you come through."

"Yellow truck. My truck." Something was wrong. His ears pounded.

"He looks weak to me."

"Where is the truck?"

"Ask the Russian guy."

Tommy slapped him. "What?"

"Garage, across from the gym. Lafayette. Grand Street. Second floor. Ask the Russian guy."

"The money's in the truck?"

He nodded exhaustedly. "Radiator. Pull the wire."

"What's at the end of the wire?" came the voice in his ear.

"Plastic bag. Filled with hundreds." Also the traveler's checks that Paul had given him.

The men looked at one another. "Let's go."

They opened the car trunk and dropped the big sealed ice chest on the pavement. "See, Rick, we're very cool here," said Morris. "You're one block from the hospital. The cooler is here, your arm inside. Everything is cool. Now you can stand up and get out."

He rose uneasily in his long coat, his foot hurting like broken fish bones, leaking blood, and staggered over to the cooler and sat on it. They yanked the car door shut and pulled into the traffic. Then up the avenue, then a turn at the light, then gone. He picked weakly at the duct tape around the cooler. Stand, he told himself. He couldn't stand. He stood anyway. Get someone to help. Who would help? Not many people out this late. He knelt and grabbed the ice chest by the handle and lifted one end. It was shockingly heavy. How could that be? Somebody had made a mistake. Too much ice. No way he could actually carry it. But he could drag it, he knew that, and he waited for the light. Don't think, don't worry, he told himself, just drag this box across First Avenue. Make your legs do the work. Worry about the police later, you want your arm back on. That's the thing. The pain chewed at his left side. Guys in wars do this shit, Rick thought, so can I. The light changed to green and he pulled. The fucker was heavy; it must have weighed three hundred pounds, all that ice in there. It was too big, that was the problem, they didn't need a chest that big. He bumped the thing off the curb and began to drag, knees bent, back bent against the weight, his left arm, the stump, doing nothing, just jerking around strangely, hurting like hell, and he pulled the thing across the first lane of traffic, scraping the shit out of the bottom of the chest, but who cared. The taxi drivers watched him; in the darkness nobody noticed he was missing his arm because of the long coat or saw his bloody foot, nobody understood, and that was fine because he was going to make it, he was going to do all good things